Alice Rawsthorn – Dezeenhttps://www.dezeen.com
architecture and design magazineFri, 09 Dec 2016 14:43:53 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1Apple Watch is "a three-dimensional exercise in skeuomorphia" says Alice Rawsthornhttps://www.dezeen.com/2016/03/22/alice-rawsthorn-attacks-apple-watch-collaboration-hermes-skeuomorphia/
https://www.dezeen.com/2016/03/22/alice-rawsthorn-attacks-apple-watch-collaboration-hermes-skeuomorphia/#commentsTue, 22 Mar 2016 17:06:45 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=871154Design critic Alice Rawsthorn has launched a scathing attack on the Apple Watch and the tech company's collaboration with fashion house Hermès, as Apple cuts the price of its controversial smart watch. Rawsthorn described the Apple Watch as a "design debacle" in an Instagram post published on Sunday, the day before Apple announced it was

Rawsthorn described the Apple Watch as a "design debacle" in an Instagram post published on Sunday, the day before Apple announced it was cutting the price of the watch at a product reveal event in Cupertino, California.

"I wanted them to be so singular and futuristic that I couldn't imagine what they'd be like," wrote Rawsthorn of her initial reaction to news that Apple was working on a watch.

"But, sadly, they turned out to look like digital watches."

The Apple Watch Hermès collection features classic designs with Apple Watch faces, including this cuff

Launched last year, the collection of watches included versions of Hermès classic watches with Apple Watch faces, and was seen as an attempt to position the watch as a luxury fashion product rather than a gadget.

"Why would Apple use its R&D resources to reproduce an existing watch instead of designing a thrillingly new one?" asked Rawsthorn.

The Apple Watch was showcased in a special pavilion in Milan during the 2015 design week before going on sale later in the year

"Apple has been criticised, quite rightly, for doing something similar in user interface design, by using skeuomorphic symbols of old-fashioned telephones, letters and printed books to identify their digital equivalents," she said. "It has made some progress on that front, though not enough, but in Apple Watch Hermès (as it is oddly called) it has produced a three-dimensional exercise in skeuomorphia."

"Why not bury the iPhone's technology in an antiquated ring-dial telephone?" she added.

Apple has previously been criticised for its attachment to skeuomorphism – a type of digital design that mimics real-world objects – by figures including industrial designer Yves Behar, who said Apple was "designing their product and their software separately."

This is seen as an unusual move for Apple, which does not often reduce the price of its designs until it releases a new iteration.

Apple also revealed a new range of nylon strap designs and further colours for its existing strap lines. Cook said the company was releasing more as it had found that up to a third of Apple Watch users were swapping their straps on a regular basis.

Rawsthorn has published a series of posts on her Instagram account covering various "design debacles", which also include the demolition of the Okura Hotel in Tokyo, the 2003 UPS rebrand by FutureBrand, and the Palm Beach County, Florida ballot paper from the 2000 US presidential election.

]]>https://www.dezeen.com/2016/03/22/alice-rawsthorn-attacks-apple-watch-collaboration-hermes-skeuomorphia/feed/12Salone del Mobile presents design as a "superficial stylistic tool" says Alice Rawsthornhttps://www.dezeen.com/2015/03/30/salone-del-mobile-design-as-superficial-stylistic-tool-alice-rawsthorn-milan-2015/
https://www.dezeen.com/2015/03/30/salone-del-mobile-design-as-superficial-stylistic-tool-alice-rawsthorn-milan-2015/#commentsMon, 30 Mar 2015 10:47:22 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=670984Milan 2015: Milan's furniture fair has become a celebration of marketing over design and has helped feed the public perception of design as a superficial discipline, according to design critic Alice Rawsthorn. Writing in the latest issue of Frieze magazine, Rawsthorn argues that the annual Salone del Mobile and its fringe events have "unintentionally reinforced

Milan 2015: Milan's furniture fair has become a celebration of marketing over design and has helped feed the public perception of design as a superficial discipline, according to design critic Alice Rawsthorn.

The annual April fair has become so dominated by "shameless promotional stunts, seemingly unrelated to furniture, that the British designer Jasper Morrison has suggested renaming the Salone del Mobile, the Salone del Marketing," she wrote in her latest By Design column for the art magazine.

Rawsthorn, former director of London's Design Museum and the design critic for the International New York Times, argues that the fair dominates the media's portrayal of design, despite the fact that design disciplines such as technology and service design are today more important than furniture.

"Isn't it odd that a furniture fair should exert so much power throughout design culture, not just in its chosen field?" she asked, and stated: "The Milan fair has become one of those highly visible yet increasingly ambiguous events, like the Hay Festival in the Welsh Borders, which are sustained as much by their promotional prowess as by their significance within their original field."

In her Frieze column, titled The shifting influence of Milan's Salone del Mobile, Rawsthorn traces the history of the fair, which began in 1961 as a showcase for the Italian furniture industry.

At the time, Italy's furniture sector was an important contributor to the country's postwar economic recovery, and furniture continued to be the dominant cultural force among design disciplines for much of the 20th century.

"In an age when design innovation tended to focus on physical things, the chair was an eloquent medium through which to trace changes in aesthetics, technology, demographics, social and political concerns," she explained.

However today, furniture has lost its cultural importance, she argues, while designers have moved on to tackle new challenges – a theme she also addressed in her 2013 book, Hello World, which charts the changing role and meaning of design over the centuries.

Rawsthorn argued in the column that the rise of digital tools – combined with a new generation of designers who are using their skills to pursue self-initiated political or environmental objectives rather than the commercial objectives of their clients – means that chairs and tables will never again have the cultural impact they achieved with the 1981 launch of the influential Memphis group or the 1993 inauguration of Dutch conceptual design platform Droog.

"A decade ago, many students seemed set on becoming mini-Starcks," she wrote. "Now they're more likely to aspire to curbing the environmental crisis, redefining design's interpretation of gender identity or finding life-changing applications for new technologies."

No other design fair has yet risen to challenge Milan's dominance, Rawsthorn argues, but she lists German fair imm cologne as an emerging commercial competitor and cites the biennials in Ljubljana and Istanbul as increasingly influential generators of design discourse.

"Many of the new design challenges are explored in the fringe exhibitions and debates held during the Salone," Rawsthorn writes. "But a furniture fair is not the most empathic or effective forum for them, raising the possibility of their migrating elsewhere."

The 54th edition of the Salone del Mobile takes place in Milan from 14-19 April.

]]>https://www.dezeen.com/2015/03/30/salone-del-mobile-design-as-superficial-stylistic-tool-alice-rawsthorn-milan-2015/feed/11IKEA's refugee housing is "unusually sensitive and intelligent" says Alice Rawsthornhttps://www.dezeen.com/2014/12/10/ikea-flat-pack-refugee-housing-sensitive-intelligent-response-alice-rawsthorn/
https://www.dezeen.com/2014/12/10/ikea-flat-pack-refugee-housing-sensitive-intelligent-response-alice-rawsthorn/#commentsWed, 10 Dec 2014 15:27:38 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=610064News: IKEA's flat-pack refugee shelters, which have now been tested in Ethiopia and Iraq, have been described by design critic Alice Rawsthorn as being part of "one of the most important design developments of the past decade" (+ slideshow). The lightweight prototype shelter, developed by the IKEA Foundation alongside the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), was among the projects

]]>News:IKEA's flat-pack refugee shelters, which have now been tested in Ethiopia and Iraq, have been described by design critic Alice Rawsthorn as being part of "one of the most important design developments of the past decade" (+ slideshow).Kobe Refugee Camp, Dollo Ado, Ethiopia

The lightweight prototype shelter, developed by the IKEA Foundation alongside the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), was among the projects to receive an honorary award at the recent Swedish Design Awards, which were judged by Rawsthorn alongside Ross Lovegrove, Li Edelkoort and Giulio Cappellini.

First launched in 2013, the Refugee Housing Unit (RHU) aims to offer the millions of children and families forced to flee their homes every year an alternative to traditional canvas ridge tents or more modern hoop tents, neither of which provide insulation or last more than a few months.

Kobe Refugee Camp, Dollo Ado, Ethiopia

"The realisation that the people who need design ingenuity the most, the poorest 90 per cent of the global population, have historically been deprived of it, and the determination to address that, have been one of the most important design developments of the past decade," said Rawsthorn.

Kobe Refugee Camp, Dollo Ado, Ethiopia

IKEA's shed-like shelters are made from polymer panels, laminated with thermal insulation, that clip onto a steel frame to create a 17.5-square-metre enclosure.

Like much of the Swedish homeware brand's furniture products, the structures are flat-packed into cardboard boxes. They can be assembled in four hours and include photovoltaic panels, providing enough energy to power the supplied light or to charge a mobile phone.

"The Refugee Housing Unit is an unusually sensitive and intelligent response that not only promises to provide sorely needed shelter for people in desperate circumstances, but also a robust and congenial place for them to live, possibly for several years, before moving on to permanent homes."

"So far the response has been very positive, unusually so in the intensely political sphere of economic development," she added. "Hopefully its success will encourage other companies and institutions to address humanitarian design with the same thoughtfulness."

The current prototype is over three metres wide and just under six metres long, with four windows and one door. It can sleep up to five people.

The project was launched in May 2013 for a two-year trial. The UNHCR is evaluating its success based on the personal, social and cultural expectations of its target occupants, its suitability to environment, and the logistics of its production and deployment.

]]>https://www.dezeen.com/2014/12/10/ikea-flat-pack-refugee-housing-sensitive-intelligent-response-alice-rawsthorn/feed/33"The proper blend of beauty and ethics" - New York Timeshttps://www.dezeen.com/2012/07/23/the-proper-blend-of-beauty-and-ethics-new-york-times/
https://www.dezeen.com/2012/07/23/the-proper-blend-of-beauty-and-ethics-new-york-times/#respondMon, 23 Jul 2012 19:00:00 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=230408Dezeen Wire: design critic Alice Rawsthorn writes about design that balances desirability with ethical credibility for the New York Times, citing Mathieu Lehanneur's Wi-Fi stations across Paris and Something & Son's temporary spa the Barking Bathhouse as good examples to follow - New York Times

]]>https://www.dezeen.com/2012/07/23/the-proper-blend-of-beauty-and-ethics-new-york-times/feed/0"Messing With Mother Nature" - New York Timeshttps://www.dezeen.com/2012/07/09/messing-with-mother-nature-new-york-times/
https://www.dezeen.com/2012/07/09/messing-with-mother-nature-new-york-times/#respondMon, 09 Jul 2012 15:02:26 +0000http://admin.dezeen.com/?p=225637Dezeen Wire: design critic Alice Rawsthorn writes about the moral and social implications of redesigning the human body in advance of an exhibition about human enhancement called Superhuman at the Wellcome Collection in London from 19 July - New York Times

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Dezeen Wire: design critic Alice Rawsthorn writes about the moral and social implications of redesigning the human body in advance of an exhibition about human enhancement called Superhuman at the Wellcome Collection in London from 19 July - New York Times